The lower power models can surely be expected to provide the same acoustic and electrical performance at <300W, which is the main power range of concern to the vast majority of DIY PC builders.

I wonder where you get this from? As we've seen time and time again, fan ramp ups are not the same for PSUs of the same series with different power ratings. Ones rated for lower wattage tend to ramp up faster under load, since they have less headroom. It's only overengineered PSUs which are essentially high power ones that have been marked down that don't tend to do that.

The sweet spot for silencing for the TP-750 is 300W load; if you can achieve the same results using lower rated models, they would undoubtedly be a better buy since they'd be cheaper and you wouldn't want to buy the TP-750 for silencing if you're going over that anyway. A test to confirm that would be very nice, rather than just inferring that they'd perform similarly based on a PSU that's more powerful than most single-gpu users will ever need.

The lower power models can surely be expected to provide the same acoustic and electrical performance at <300W, which is the main power range of concern to the vast majority of DIY PC builders.

I wonder where you get this from? As we've seen time and time again, fan ramp ups are not the same for PSUs of the same series with different power ratings. Ones rated for lower wattage tend to ramp up faster under load, since they have less headroom. It's only overengineered PSUs which are essentially high power ones that have been marked down that don't tend to do that.

The sweet spot for silencing for the TP-750 is 300W load; if you can achieve the same results using lower rated models, they would undoubtedly be a better buy since they'd be cheaper and you wouldn't want to buy the TP-750 for silencing if you're going over that anyway. A test to confirm that would be very nice, rather than just inferring that they'd perform similarly based on a PSU that's more powerful than most single-gpu users will ever need.

It's often the case that in a line with say 5 to 7 models they will do this:

each strategy might be marked as 1 to 3 output numbers with the same or more cables/connectors.

In other lines they will avoid the heatsink change and just change the caps.

In cases where the fan and heatsink are the same noise isn't affected by a change in caps. So you can easily say in those cases that a 550 and 650 would sound similar (manufacturing variance is always an issue that keeps you from saying they sound exactly the same).

The only major exception to this rule of thumb worse than minor heatsink changes is a line like Corsair has where they have completely different internals from multiple companies under the same brand name (Seasonic and ChannelWell Technologies aka CWT). In those cases a 550 and 650 might sound totally different because they are wholly different designs with nothing common between them (diff PCB, fan, caps, heatsinks, etc)

_________________.Please put a country in your profile if you haven't already.This site is international but I'll assume you are in the US if you don't tell me otherwise.RAID levels thread http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=388987

Since you picked Corsair - that's actually a good example of how noise differs when you look at their PSUs which are made by the same manufacturer. Their Seasonics perform very different from each other, as do the ones made by CWT.

Since you picked Corsair - that's actually a good example of how noise differs when you look at their PSUs which are made by the same manufacturer. Their Seasonics perform very different from each other, as do the ones made by CWT.

Not true. The ones made by Seasonic (and in the same series) are quite similar to each other.

Perhaps my comment is overoptimistic about the lower power TP models. Since samples of both the 550 and the 650 are on hand, we'll find out soon enough.

EDIT - forgot to mention... the main reason for my comment is that the TP-550 has heatsinks identical to the ones in the TP-750. In all previous Seasonic series, the fan controller circuitry has been the same, and when there were differences in the noise-power curve, they arose from heatsink size differences. As per dhanson865's second example: big heatsink lower rated caps

Where are the 10% of systems that take more than 750W?
This is not appropriate for personal computers, especially silent personal computers. Maybe for some servers but there silence is rarely of much importance.

Where are the 10% of systems that take more than 750W?This is not appropriate for personal computers, especially silent personal computers. Maybe for some servers but there silence is rarely of much importance.

Retail PSUs are sold largely to end user consumers and smaller system integrators (ie, not the Dells, HPs, etc). If we eliminate the commercial buyers of such PSUs and focus solely on the DIYers, I can assure you the gamers exceed all other categories by a pretty wide margin. (Among them, 750W is probably considered a starting point. But never mind perception...)

Among DIY PC builds, I don't think it's unrealistic to say that 10% of those systems would benefit from a >750W PSU for reasons of headroom as well as noise. As already suggested here earlier, a PSU that runs at 50% of rated power is usually a lot quieter than one that's running close to its max rated power.

Since samples of both the 550 and the 650 are on hand, we'll find out soon enough.

EDIT - forgot to mention... the main reason for my comment is that the TP-550 has heatsinks identical to the ones in the TP-750.

That does sound promising, and more logical. I've gotten more skeptical about PSU noise after getting burned on the Corsair VX450 (either that or it was the VX550 - can't check right now). It was fine for a while, but then I got a modern video card and the fan just ramped up way too fast. It seemed to be load controlled, not temperature controlled, and it was the noisiest component in my system before I replaced it with a CP850.

The Corsar TX/VX series is the only one I know of that mixed products from different mfgs. iirc, 450 and 650 were Seasonic while 550 and 750 were Channel-Well. The Seasonic-mades were quiet, the CWTs were noisy.

I haven't torn my case apart, because I'm getting another in 4 days, but I actually have this power supply sitting right here in front of me.

1) It's very quiet. In fact, you could write a review that just has 5 pages of repeating the words "it's very quiet" and that wouldn't really do it justice. The fan is probably running at 470RPM at idle in my unit. This is with a power supply tester plugged in, just checking that it has output voltage.

2) The build quality varies. While I look at the pictures of the SPCR unit, and look at the bottom of my box, a small piece of plastic has made it's way off a circuit board inside the PSU, between it being built and arriving at my doorstep. Specifically, it's the one that shields the PWM circuit from potentially coming into contact with the massive coil right next to it. It's running without problem, but when I pulled the unit out of the box, that piece of plastic was wedged in the fan grill. How it got there, I couldn't tell you. It's not a major worry, I'll be putting it back in, but still, for this kind of a price, it's not the first thing I want to see.

3) It's half-modular, but I had everything in my computer plugged in, and spare cables before even opening the pack of extra cables. Granted, I'm not running a tri-sli build, I think having more modular options would help, I really don't think there's that much signal loss in a modular cable vs soldered in.

4) It ships with a great IEC cable, 16AWG. No, it doesn't beat the 14AWG cable I'm already using, but it's a lot better than the standard 18AWG cable most users have.

5) It has both an 8 Pin CPU connector and a 4 pin CPU connector. To be honest, one or the other please, having both leaves an extra cable no matter what. the split 8 pin connectors on most other power supplies solved this problem, Antec didn't think it was good enough for this?

6) Inside it does have some Solid State capacitors...it's a start, but I'd like to see power supplies move towards these 100%.

other than that, I'm sure I'll find more things about it when I'm actually putting it in a case. It doesn't seem to have any problems concerning heat or airflow, so right now, I consider it a good power supply, but not a real permanent replacement for my Corsair 400W. My computer simply doesn't draw enough power to consider this power supply necessary.

Just thought I'd add my 2c (copied from another thread) after I picked up one of these PSUs.

JamieG wrote:

I've just picked up an Antec TP-750 as a replacement PSU to try and diagnose some power issues I've been having with one of my systems (Q07 main rig in my signature) - utterly overspecced but it was the cheapest PSU I could find on the weekend over the holiday break that was well-reviewed at SPCR. It's very quiet at low loads with a bit of ticking detectable in the fan noise at >40cm on an open desk.

... I estimate that the TP-750 at idle is about as loud as a Slipstream 800rpm somewhere between 7V to maybe 9V or so.

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